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♪♪[theme music]♪♪ >>>michael stoler:astoria, soda jerk, you know, jewelry business, seal testmilkman, laborer, germany, the military, comes backgotta find another job, you know gets into thehousekeeping business and who at theage of 52 says i'm going to go and i'm goingto open up a cleaning business and it's nota cleaning business, it's a major cleaningbusiness in new york.

i have the legendaryjoe collins today. thanks for being here. >>>joe collins:thank you mike, it's a pleasure. >>>michael stoler: so you,you would tell me about grandpa. your grandpa was a veryinteresting character, right. he was the grand marshalof the parade in 1917. >>>joe collins:1917, the big parade, the one inmanhattan you know. >>>michael stoler: the bigparade, but what happened?

>>>joe collins: it wascalled off because they had only the bad weather and for thefirst time they were having all the boy scouts andthe school's marching and they were afraid of thekids getting sick you know. >>>michael stoler: nowyou tell me grandpa, according toyour mom and dad, grandpa had a likea livery business? >>>joe collins: yeah hewas a big horseman and he had a livery business nearthe hotel lexington and

then in later yearshe converted that to a garage. i think it wasthe first one, cause i guess a lot ofbig shots lived in hotel lexington andchauffer's hung out there. >>>michael stoler: so the carswere there. but you also said that grandpa was very closewith, let's say, tammany hall? >>>joe collins:yeah kind of, you know you got thewhole irish thing. >>>michael stoler: theirish group over there.

>>>joe collins: you know, iguess they stuck together. >>>michael stoler: so tell meabout dad, where was dad born? your father you told mehe was born in 1902 or something like that. >>>joe collins: yeah, 1902,in manhattan, they lived in manhattan.my mother is well. >>>michael stoler: your dad wasdoing what during that time? >>>joe collins: heworked for the government, he was with customs at theairport for a while and then

he primarily went tothe post office and his whole working career. >>>michael stoler: right,and mom worked more in the. >>>joe collins: well shedidn't work for a while but we fell on hard times and stuffand she did what she had to do, she went to work in a drycleaners and then she worked up until she was,well she died at 72. >>>michael stoler: but yousaid she worked until she was about 70?

>>>joe collins: yeah, shewas like a bookkeeper and stuff for a christmasdecorations firm. >>>michael stoler: soyou have two sisters? >>>joe collins: two sisters. >>>michael stoler: so tellme about your sisters. one even became a sister. >>>joe collins: yeah mysister became a sister. yeah she went into theconvent then she went to bishop mcdonnell, you know which is acatholic high school and so on.

and when she finished shewanted to go into the convent. my father said look i'dlike you to go out in the world for a year. and he got her a job atabercrombie something, you know which was a greatthing for me because every payday she brought mesomething, you know so. >>>michael stoler:that was good thing. >>>joe collins: but theyear was up and she wanted to go and she wentwith our blessing,

my mother andfather's blessing and. >>>michael stoler: so that's onesister and the other sister? >>>joe collins: my othersister she went to st joseph's commercial, another catholichigh school and she worked at equitable,when it was equitable you know and she worked therefor a long time and then she got marriedand she had three children. her oldest boyjohnny was my god child, he was killed in anautomobile accident.

she took it veryhard needless to say. my sister, the nun sheused to finish school in hewlett, long island and ihad gotten her a car and she used to drive down tophiladelphia every day. she would drivedown after school, drive home that night, thenext day drive down again, she did that everyday you know so. >>>michael stoler: so yougrew up in queens right? >>>joe collins:queens, yeah.

>>>michael stoler: inastoria section of queens and you went to public,no you went to parochial public school right? >>>joe collins: yes,parochial grammar school. >>>michael stoler: grammarschool and at that time you had a couple ofjobs that we were talking about. you know you had a job. >>>joe collins: quite a few. >>>michael stoler: soda jerk?

>>>joe collins: yeah. >>>michael stoler:you make lime rickeys? >>>joe collins: yeah, istarted off egg creams. yeah, i did that, iworked in a grocery store, i worked in a butcher,i worked in a costume jewelry place pouring. >>>michael stoler:right, pouring the. >>>joe collins: meltedmetal into the molds and stuff. >>>michael stoler: butyou even played hockey,

we got a pictureof you, you know you. >>>joe collins:roller hockey. >>>michael stoler: youplayed roller hockey. >>>joe collins:played roller hockey. >>>michael stoler:and you made out of, you made a goalie outfit. >>>joe collins: wellthere was a fellow, sal messina who livedon the same street and we used to play in the streetroller skates and sal,

his first set of goaliepads we stole a couple of throw rugs fromthe apartment house. >>>michael stoler:you didn't steal. >>>joe collins:we borrowed them. and then you know wefolded them over and put slits in withthe skate straps, that was his firstset of goalie pads. he went on to play, he waslike third string for the rangers for a while andhe was picked for the olympics

and then he wound up doinga lot of announcing and he had a nickname redlights sal you know and. >>>michael stoler: soafter public school your mother and father saidwe got to send our son to brooklyn, i meanthis was difficult. >>>joe collins: well mymother actually came down and i'll never forget hername sister william agnes was my eighth gradeteacher and as i mentioned my sister had gone tobishop mcdonnell and my

mother mentioned to herthat they'd like me to go to bishop loughlin whichwas the boys version of it and i was not thrilledabout it but sister william agnes kind shekind of laughed and said to my mother mrs. collinsyou're kidding yourself there's no way thathe would make bishop loughlin. >>>michael stoler: and so you- >>>joe collins: so i- >>>michael stoler: you made it.

>>>joe collins: i madeit and i went there. >>>michael stoler: butthen you changed and you said it was too farof a schlep- >>>joe collins: brooklyn anddidn't want to go and at that time we had peg pantsand stuff and i would go and they'd send me home frombrooklyn to change my pants, well needless tosay i'd come home and i wouldn't goback, you know so. >>>michael stoler: so youfinished at long island.

>>>joe collins: yeah iwent to long island city high. >>>michael stoler: so yougraduated long island city high and what do you do,because before you pushed up your draft, okay, iknow you pushed up your draft. >>>joe collins: well i, i wentto work in the milk company, i had a friend of mine. >>>michael stoler: right,you had a friend who was the shop steward. >>>joe collins: his fatherwas a shop steward for

seal test foods and weused to pull out of the barn on van wyck, nearvan wyck expressway. >>>michael stoler: and you hadthe shift at one o'clock. >>>joe collins:yeah, you would go, you deliveredmilk to the doors, you would go and you'd be roaming aroundthese neighborhoods. first you had to go in andload your truck and then at that time itwas all bottles, you shoveled iceon it to keep it,

the trucks weren'trefrigerated or anything and you wouldroam around at one, two in the morningdelivering milk with the milk bottles and stuff. and at that timethere was the draft, i was eighteenwhen i started there, the draft was taking guys24-25 they were calling them, now the job ihad was a union job, they had to hold a job forme so i said you know i'm

not, i'm low man onthe totem pole here i'm bouncing allover the place, i might as wellpush up my draft. so i did i pushed up mydraft at the age of twenty and went into theservice for two years. >>>michael stoler:right. and those two years, you know after basicand advanced training. your advancedtraining was in what? >>>joe collins: itwas in colorado,

colorado springs,right fort carson i think, then i went tomannheim, germany. >>>michael stoler:now in mannheim, germany when you weregrowing up you met this young lady from astoriawho happened to be a german descendant and sheaccidentally in mannheim, germany whenyou were there. >>>joe collins: wellactually it went a little later you know after,after mannheim i was

transferred to kaiserslau,my orders it said arc, i said what are theytransferring me to the american redcross or what, but it was an airreconnaissance company and i went there and as isaid we grew up on a same street, six years old,childhood sweethearts, this that, you know highschool she went her way, i went my way. but she planned a trip,her father passed away

when she was quite youngand her mother used to work at loftcandy down at, near queen's plaza thereand she was coming on a trip to germany with hermother and she ran into my mother on the streetand got my address, wrote to me and i madearrangements when she came to, to come down, i thoughtfor a quick visit but. >>>michael stoler: youfinished the military, you come back, you're still notmarried, a little while back.

you go back to sealtest because you had the seniority and youalso enrolled and baruch college, at city collegein new york and the milk job didn't work out wellbecause it was tough and then you got then youbecame a laborer working. >>>joe collins: yeah, i'dleft the milk company i guess probably theearly part of '64. >>>michael stoler: right. pretty close to thetime when you got married.

>>>joe collins: yeah, yeahand i had another friend that got me a job as alaborer for the wire lathers. and you know iloved steel, the black iron that thelathers would tie and stuff and i did that. and peggy, my wife and igot married in november, we moved into the samestreet we grew up on but now in theapartment house, four story walk up, wewere paying $68 a month rent.

>>>michael stoler:and you had the tar. >>>joe collins: and wewould go up and see what my son and we would, had ablow up pool that he would go and wecalled it tar beach. >>>michael stoler:and then you had an opportunity to getinvolved with a crew. >>>joe collins: well wegot married in november, i got laid off in january. my wife had worked forbroadway maintenance that

was down hereat queens plaza, not here butin the queens. broadway maintenanceused to do all the city lighting and stuff likethat so they were pretty well connected then andsomebody that worked there who put me in touch withthis fella chris peters who was in thecleaning business. >>>michael stoler:right, now chris peters. >>>joe collins: not petercallahan.

>>>michael stoler: no, no, no, chris petershappened to have, he was, alcoa, thealuminum company of america had built whattoday is called lincoln towers, on the west side >>>joe collins: it was lincolntowers on the west side. eight apartment buildings and ithink now trump got involved. >>>michael stoler: sothey converted that, marty reigns did theconversion later on to co-ops

but you get a job at lincolntowers basically in the. >>>joe collins:package room. >>>michael stoler:in the package rooms. >>>joe collins: i took thejob for a hundred bucks a week, 12 hours a day. >>>michael stoler: and thepackage rooms were called housekeeping services. >>>joe collins: yes. >>>michael stoler: right,where you had the packages

over there, where youpick up the dry cleaning. >>>joe collins: yeah wewould take in dry cleaning and laundry and sellthe cleaning services, the window cleaning, the carpetshampooing and stuff, you know. so we did that and chrispeters had to get back, he had a commercialcompany as well. you know mickey mouse,you know kind of small. >>>michael stoler: right,but then you were able to get intodorchester towers.

dorchester towers wasa brand new building. >>>joe collins: yes,on amsterdam avenue. >>>michael stoler:pretty close to. >>>joe collins:the lincoln towers. >>>michael stoler: thelincoln towers and you were able to figure out away that you could do the laundry, the dry cleaningwithin dorchester towers. >>>joe collins:there was a fellow, i forget his name, he hada dry cleaning store in

dorchester towers, drycleaning and laundry and he got it for his son. well his son wasn'ttoo anxious to work and everything, so hegot in touch with me, he wanted to hire me asa manager to manage the store and i suggested tohim how about taking on a partner that could bring in xnumber of dollars in volume. >>>michael stoler: yeah,you had the nine apartment houses over there.

>>>joe collins: so we, insteadof sending the laundry to somebody else and the drycleaning we'd do it in dorchester. arranged a meetingwith him and chris peters and we bought him out. >>>michael stoler: and youtook over the cleaning. so now you're workingover there at housekeeping services or whatever termwe call the business and you're also, you're working,you're not an owner, you're just a workingguy taking care, okay.

and over hereyou're involved with the cleaning, with the packageroom and the other things. so subsequently, okay,fast forward over here, chris peters wasn'tthe best business man, lots of things happenedover there and one night you're havingdinner at sal anthony's, right >>>michael stoler: with abuddy of yours who- >>>joe collins: i grew upwith in astoria. >>>michael stoler: howlong did you know your buddy?

>>>joe collins: well i wasfive years older than him but i guess, you know at that timethe drinking age was eighteen. so once the agedifference went away, once the eighteen year oldcould come into the bar and drink with the. >>>michael stoler:the 23 year old. >>>joe collins:so we became very, very friendly andhe was successful. >>>michael stoler: he was in thepublishing business, right?

>>>joe collins: c.p.a. and hestruggled, he bought a magazine company and he did very well youknow and they bought andsold magazines. >>>michael stoler:so what happens, your having dinner withand you were working at that time on commercial. >>>joe collins: well chrispeters had gone bankrupt. we were boughtby a prichard, british company, then thebritish company was taken

over by somebodyelse and the son, peter pritchard went outon his own and i went to work for him and broughtpeople that are still with me now, i brought themthere you know and it was tough. you know gettingany nickel out of it. >>>michael stoler: and you'restill working as an employee. so you have dinner with yourbuddy and what happens? >>>joe collins:he says to me, what's the hecksthe matter with you,

you got a chipon your shoulder, i says that sob i said,i'm going to have to go to the mat with himfor every nickel. so he says to me joeyou've been around so why don't you doyour own thing? >>>michael stoler:52 years of age. >>>joe collins: isaid peter take scratch, so he says whatcould it take, i said well i wouldn't buyanything because you don't

know what you're buying,buy some guys cleaning business and find out thathis father in law owns all the buildings he'scleaning is something you know, i said i wouldstart my own company and. so there were sevenof us originally, how much do youneed to live, how much doesthis guy need, how much does thatguy and so he come up, he says to me joe amillion and a half should do it.

i said pete a million and a halfwas always a nice round number, so we did the deal,we shook hands, no lawyers. >>>michael stoler: whatdid your wife say when you told her when hewent home that night? can we repeat it on t.v.? >>>joe collins: no, mywife has always been very, very supportive. >>>michael stoler:okay, so it's 1987. >>>joe collins: i had alot of friends telling me

i was out of mymind, you know at 52, you know. >>>michael stoler: so it's '87. >>>joe collins:'88. >>>michael stoler:'88and joe collins who really wasn't you know, you werein housekeeping services you really weren't incommercial cleaning. >>>joe collins: no, but ihad i had gotten to know quite a few of thepeople and you know. >>>michael stoler: so you go outthere and you were telling me,

you would do anything to get apiece of business. >>>joe collins: yep. >>>michael stoler: and oneof the worst jobs around was to clean the sideof the elevator shafts. >>>joe collins: well itwas the durst organization that owned the building and atthe time they had a contract, another contract to do thecleaning of the buildings. i had a friend that i knowthat worked for them and he came to me and he saidjoe listen i got a job for

you but i don't know, hesays can you clean the elevator shafts you know. so i say jeff i'llclean anything you know. so we did, me and a toughold irish bird who was a manager at a buildingyou know and we went, rode the top of theelevator car vacuuming the walls and stufflike that and i, i think i gavehim a price of $2500 and he says to me billme $5000 because

i'm going to charge itback to the cleaner that had the contract becausehe was supposed to do it so. so at any rate we didand i went and i saw the manager was tom kitson,tough old irish bird. i said mr. kitson wouldyou like to go look and see what we did, he said ialready did he said just keep doing whatyou're doing. you know. >>>michael stoler: but imean from nothing in 1988, scratch, i mean you'vegone out and built an

organization that has thecontract for the barclays center, do all the workfor forest city ratner. >>>joe collins: pretty much. >>>michael stoler: you know,city university where we're taping you know, we had to checkthe floors you know if the space looked good overhere. and then you got the small little institutionthe new york university. >>>joe collins:yeah, nyu, yeah. they just recently extendedour contract for ten years.

>>>michael stoler: andthen you said that one of your relativesworked at equitable. >>>joe collins: oh,it wasn't a relative, well my sisterworked there. >>>michael stoler:your sister worked at equitable. >>>joe collins: but there was aguy that, actually at one time i guess my sister worked forhim, you know, bill mccafferty, he has since passed awaybut i used to spend a lot of time there when iworked with chris peters,

you know i was there,because we used to do the, they did the cleaning inhouse we did the extras. and a lot of peoplethought i worked for equitable, you knowbut then we went and he. >>>michael stoler: sotoday what is c.b.s., i mean even though youknow you try to take another name like c.b.s. the columbiabroadcasting station, how many, how manypeople work for c.b.s.?

>>>joe collins: wehave at about 2800 people you know workingfor us you know and. >>>michael stoler: andsomething that you've done because you learned thisprobably from your mom and dad and your wife is thatyou've been really always helpful and charitable,you were involved with telecare. >>>joe collins: telecare. >>>michael stoler: withyou know the god squad with rabbi gellman and.

>>>joe collins: tom hartman. >>>michael stoler: tomhartman. you've been involved with numerous charitableorganizations. >>>joe collins: outreachprojects as adolescent drug and alcohol abuse. the sister saint josephi've continued to do things with them andfor them you know. >>>michael stoler: so tellme a little bit about the family you've been marriedto this woman you just

celebrated yourfiftieth anniversary. >>>joe collins:fiftieth wedding. >>>michael stoler: yougot some nice pictures you know that youused over there. >>>joe collins:total surprise, i don't know how myson and his wife did it. >>>michael stoler: andthen you have one son, your son's name is? >>>joe collins: kenneth.

>>>michael stoler:and his wife's name? >>>joe collins: kielyand i have one grandson. >>>michael stoler: youhave that and then you have your grandson. >>>joe collins: graduated. >>>michael stoler: andwhere does he want to go. >>>joe collins: he'sbeen accepted at richmond. >>>michael stoler: rightwhich is a great school, now you said to me you'vebeen a fisherman your life.

>>>joe collins: well iused to go a little bit. >>>michael stoler: big bassfish. >>>joe collins:well we used to go, going back when i workedfor chris peters and stuff i've tried it a coupleof times on our own, we would get a party boat,we would get a bus to take us out to montaukthursday night, stop at the lobster inn insouthampton for dinner and then go on to montauk,then get up in the morning

and go fishing on thisparty boat and that was nice. and then i go up to aplace called indian lake in the adirondacks inaugust and i have a little 17 foot runabout. >>>michael stoler: so forthe kids you know who made the egg creams okay andput the newspaper together and you knowworked at seal test. who was the laborer whotried hard who said at 52 i'm going to go intothis. i'm really happy to meet

joe collins and thanksfor being here today. >>>joe collins: thank youmike it was a pleasure.